Photographs by Stefano Torrione, curated by Marco Cattaneo and The National Geographic Italia Editorial Team

La Guerra Bianca – The White War, a new photographic exhibition which will be displayed from May 5th to September 25th in Palazzo delle Albere in Trento. Curated and produced by National Geographic Italia, the exhibition features over 70 large-format photographs by Stefano Torrione and showcases the Alpine landscapes where, 100 years ago, a tragic chapter of the war between Italy and Austria took place.

The photographer Stefano Torrione spent three years exploring the line of the front with Marco Gramola, president of the historical commission of the Trentino Mountaneering Association, as his guide. They visited places like Scorluzzo, Cavento, Lagoscuro, Presanella, and Albiolo – names of deep significance for those who have studied the course of the war or read the soldiers’ diaries – in search of traces of the thousands of men sent to live, fight and die in prohibitive conditions, summer and winter, at temperatures as low as minus 30°C.

And they found skeletons of huts, trenches, tunnels dug into the rock, footbridges hanging over the void, wire netting, steps of stone, wooden ladders, artillery, rifles and even boots revealed by the shrinking of the glaciers; as well as more personal objects like photos of girlfriends and tins of sardines preserved for a century by snow and ice.

In Torrione’s shots, the imprints of a tragic and violent era stand out against and blend into the apparently immutable beauty of the Alpine landscape.